Next Best Thing is a new, hopefully very limited-run commentary from KMUW. Every other Wednesday, KMUW's Jordan Kirtley will take a look at ways we can stay connected from home through virtual events and activities.
No matter how innovative they are, virtual events will never be as engaging as the real thing. And that’s why this segment is called Next Best Thing, and not Absolute Best Thing. But, virtual programming can be more convenient, and that factors highly into my own decision-making now that I can’t be bothered to change out of sweatpants.
Thankfully, the Orpheum Theatre and the Ulrich Museum of Art have launched some online programming that I’m genuinely looking forward to.
Tuesday, July 14, is the deadline to register to vote in the Kansas Primary. Normally, when election time comes around, the only decision is who to vote for. But this time, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have another factor to seriously consider: how to vote.
The options are: you can vote in-person, either at one of several location when early voting starts or at your designated polling place on Election Day. Or, you can vote in advance by mail.
The beauty of virtual events is that you can never really miss them. In a lot of cases, there’s not much difference between tuning in live, and watching a video on your own time.
As a public radio listener, I’m sure you’re familiar with NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concerts. Everyone has performed there—even the residents of Sesame Street.
The Wichita Riverfest would’ve kicked off this Friday, May 29, but for the first time in its 49 years, Riverfest will not go on as planned.
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Instead of swarming to downtown Wichita with more than 440,000 other festival-goers, Wichita Riverfest invites you to go virtual, May 29 through June 6.
Last weekend, I needed an activity that would get me out of the house for an hour or two, while keeping public contact to a minimum. So I set out to test the Wichita Public Library’s historic walking tours on the PocketSights app.
The Wichita Mom organization and United Way of the Plains are hosting a card drive for health care workers and residents in long-term care facilities. You can contribute by mailing drawings, homemade greeting cards, and letters of encouragement to United Way by April 30. They’ll take care of the rest.
With the excellent weather we’re having, aside from whatever that was on Sunday, there’s no doubt that the Sedgwick County Zoo would be packed if these were normal times. But since they aren’t, the zoo has taken to posting live videos on their Facebook page twice every weekday. I last visited the zoo in person in October, when there was a new litter of capybara pups. I was happy to see them again, even if only virtually. I also watched a red panda eat grapes and caught up with Paul the red river hog. There are lots of videos, both endearing and educational, up now, and more to look forward to every day.
While it's tough to get out and do much these days, KMUW's Jordan Kirtley brings us the "Next Best Thing"—what we hope will be a very limited series where we look at ways we can stay connected through *virtual* events and activities.
